Last week at Cisco’s Customer Briefing Center in New York City, I had the pleasure of announcing to international media the proliferation of our Global STEM Alliance that brings world-class education to students of all ages most anywhere. We are now experiencing a multiplier effect with this vital program driven by the Internet of Everything (IoE) to fulfill the unmet needs of highly skilled workers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

This week’s developments dramatically build on the initial Global STEM Alliance unveiled last month at the Internet of Things (IoT) World Forum in Barcelona, Spain, by its inaugural partners, The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy), Malaysia, the city of Barcelona and Cisco.

Last month I attended a summit of subject matter experts on securing the Internet of Things (IoT). At first, I thought I had the wrong room, because it seemed that everybody other than me was an architect or engineer working for a device manufacturer, and as a result the conversation was dominated by placing security controls into the devices, themselves. In contrast, I tend to approach the issue from the perspective of protecting the core of the network. But just when I was beginning to think I had wasted an hour-long drive and was going to be bored out of my skull all day, a few of us started debating the issue and the conversation began to evolve. Before long, we had found common ground in the fact that security controls are all about trust relationships – ‘I trust you, therefore I will allow you to do that’.

Now trust is a funny thing, because by its very nature it can neither be one-sided nor one-dimensional. Instead, it must be built into every aspect of the transaction; a sort of “digital handshake” to ensure all is well before doing business. In other words, each of our pre-conceived perspectives was correct, yet we were all being stubborn and short-sighted! Read More »

Last month we had the most successful Collaboration Summit conference ever, with partners, analysts, consultants, customers and Cisco executives coming together to explore how new collaboration solutions are helping companies become more empowered, engaged and innovative.

My mantra throughout the event was dare to be bold. Just as Cisco is launching a new wave of innovation, I am challenging you, our Cisco partners, to be bold in collaboration around 4 key imperatives:

Cisco will host a live backbone switching webcast on Wed Dec 4, 2013 to discuss BYOD, mobility, security and how Cisco backbone switching addresses these customer needs. This is the second webcast in the Cisco switching webcast series. You can view the first one, Cisco access switching webcast, at any time as it is now an on-demand video.

This backbone switching webcast comes at a critical time, as BYOD and mobility are creating major impact to the workplace. According to a recent study on BYOD and mobility,

75% of employees think that the IT department should help secure personal devices used at work;

63% of IT pros say the biggest network issue will be the increased bandwidth requirements;

39% of them say that network latency is a problem because of mobile devices;

And 39% of them have seen serious issues tied to network performance as a result.

Today’s law enforcement and government agencies are leveraging mobility to enable efficiency and ensure greater safety and security for the public these agencies serve.

In recent years, law enforcement agencies have turned to mobile technology to enhance wireless networks to deliver mission critical information. Other agencies have turned to software to help analyze citizen-driven information on mobile devices and crime in real-time.

IT decision makers in the public sector will face several challenges as they look for solutions in this growing mobile landscape that will help those in the line of duty. With that in mind it’s important for those decision makers to continue to support the case for innovative mobility solutions.

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